If the freezing past couple of months in the Twin Cities has put you on the verge of a meltdown, remember a brutally cold Minnesota winter is all relative — a matter of degrees, if you will.

And if you're feeling a bit frosty coming off the Twin Cities' coldest January in nearly a decade, try driving five hours straight north to International Falls, the city of 6,000 that trademarked the moniker "Icebox of the Nation." There, in the town that inspired Rocky and Bullwinkle's Frostbite Falls, live America's top experts on surviving brutally cold winters.

One morning last week, when metro dwellers looked at the dawn temperature (9 below, not including windchill) and wondered whether winter would ever end, residents of International Falls pointed to their thermometers and said, "Hold my frozen beer."

The temperature read 42 degrees below zero. No windchill.

"That wasn't even our coldest day," said Paul Nevanen, director of the Koochiching Economic Development Authority in International Falls. "A couple days before, we had these 20-mile-per-hour winds, and it was just brutal."

Look, city folk: Don't feel weak just because your winters pale in comparison. International Falls has been suffering through one of its coldest winters in a decade. On the shores of Rainy Lake, this winter's average daily high temperature in International Falls has been 16.6 degrees; its coldest winter in the past decade was in 2017-18, when the average daily high was 16.5 degrees.

This January was the Twin Cities' coldest for that month in nearly a decade. The month's average temperature at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was 10.7 degrees, 5.5 degrees below normal. That marked the coldest January since 2014, when the Twin Cities saw an average temperature of just 8 degrees.

The National Weather Service's Twin Cities office has issued 15 windchill advisories (for windchills between 25 and 34 degrees below) and four windchill warnings (for windchills below minus 35) so far this meteorological winter, which runs through December, January and February. That's the most since the winter of 2014-15 — and there's still a few weeks to go.

LOL, says International Falls.

One recent sunny afternoon on the Canadian border, Nevanen joked that day's unseasonable weather — 39 degrees! — had him break out the swim trunks and suntan lotion. He knew it wouldn't last. After all, that was an 81-degree swing in just five days, from the early February bottoming out at 42 degrees below. And the forecast predicted temperatures dropping back to minus 30 again.

Whatever. Sure, they'll complain. But they know it's good for business.

"The cold is essential for us," said Nevanen, whose job includes directing the city's cold-weather testing facility, where carmakers come to pit models against the fiercest of elements.

Carmakers who fill International Falls hotel rooms each winter need cold. So do loggers, who can only access certain swampy areas when the ground is frozen. So do snowmobilers, and skiers, and snowshoers. And never has ice fishing occurred in a tropical climate.

"The cold is beautiful, too," Nevanen added. "You get out in mornings when the sun's coming up, or in the evenings with the stars out, and it's all amplified. Cold has this effect on the scenery."

Minnesotans often shrug off a cold snap as a character-molding experience: Just wear layers! Jump in a sauna! Drink some aquavit!

But it's one thing for a metro resident to look at this weekend's forecast with temperatures dipping below zero, knowing they will bounce back to the 30s by next week.

It's another thing altogether in the nation's icebox, with a predicted lowof 30 below on Saturday.

Steve Johnson, a lifelong International Falls resident, hits the cross-country ski trails at least five days a week. Last month proved difficult, with average highs about 10 degrees lower than the Twin Cities.

"This January was pretty cold," said Johnson, president of Polar Polers Ski Club. "A lot of days it didn't get above zero. There were some days I kind of questioned my sanity. But you just layer up."

Plenty of spots Up North embrace the cold (we see you, Duluth, Bemidji, Brainerd and East Grand Forks). But International Falls? Perhaps few celebrate it as much.

"Cold is a good thing here," said Billy Dougherty, a fishing guide for more than half a century and part-owner of Rainy Lake Houseboats. "Winter is big business."

While the worst of the cold winter appears behind us, Minnesotans know our winters don't follow a calendar. We're not out of the woods yet. The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center prophesized this February in Minnesota will most likely have temperatures below the typical average.

Just remember: It can always be worse.

"When someone calls from Alabama, you tell them how cold it is here and they freak out," Nevanen said. "But I've been in Texas in the summer, and it's awful. It's just the flip side. To me, when it's 98 degrees and 75 percent humidity — now that's the worst."